Dr. Jennifer Keup: Reframing Transition as the Path to Hope and Healing

Jennifer R. Keup, Executive Director of The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, shares her perspective on this tumultuous year.

When I was asked to serve as the guest editor of the December issue of the Pullias Center’s newsletter and write a story for the website, I braced myself for a daunting task. How does one reflect upon and close out a year full of such incredible disruption? How do we make sense of our lived experiences with a global pandemic that introduced numerous challenges to our personal health, community welfare, social connections, higher education systems, and financial security? How do we begin to recover from a tumultuous election season that illustrated the deeply divided nature of our country? How do we process and respond to threats to the very safety and well-being of our Black family members, friends, colleagues, students, and fellow citizens in humanity? Even in my own dark moments of 2020, I kept returning to the simple answer that we process all that has happened this year and face the future with humility, hope, and a commitment to turning disruption into transformation.

Disruption is the hallmark of crisis, which is a collective state in which we have lived this year, both personally and in higher education. However, while disruption is a form of transition, it is not necessarily the most adaptive state. At best, it represents a starting point for transition and transformation. True transition is about the movement from one state or stage to another. It is dynamic and can lead to evolutionary and revolutionary change. It has the potential to inspire innovation and real transformation. It allows individuals, organizations, systems, and societies to develop and grow. As one of the core commitments of the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, I believe deeply in the power of transition. Yet, I also believe that harnessing the fullest potential of transition requires an active decision – a choice to reframe our thinking and turn disruption into transformation.

We now stand at the crossroads of that transition.

Early this year, we all faced a challenge unlike any we have ever seen. We activated our crisis response and did everything we could to protect our students, our colleagues, our campuses, our communities, and our mission. As the days and months passed, we moved from addressing crises to managing uncertainty in this pandemic in order to preserve our physical, fiscal, human, emotional, and spiritual resources. We are now facing yet another cycle of transition as we move from managing uncertainty to the process of affecting change. Life will (and should) look different for us, our students, our spaces, and our systems on the other side of the health, financial, and social justice challenges that we are facing right now. Driving change requires humility, dedication to ongoing learning, discourse, interrogation of existing practice, collaboration, and the courage to change. It takes self-awareness to recognize that while there is commonality in the challenges that we have all faced this year, we have to recognize that commonality is not the same as equity. Yes, we have all lived through 2020, but we have not experienced it the same way. As such, we must acknowledge and strive to address issues that have always been of concern but have become more salient as we…

• Navigate access to the internet, technology tools, and other aspects of the modern digital divide for our students, faculty, and staff in our efforts to create remote and hybrid learning spaces that are safe but also equitable.
• Balance the reality of students’ struggles with food and housing insecurity, lack of other basic needs, and general financial uncertainty with health concerns as we work with students in their homes, with their families, and with community partners in ways we have never done before.
• Tend to issues of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health and well-being on our campuses and in our communities in these strange and often dark times.
• Help students address real issues of safety and well-being for themselves, their families, and their communities that go beyond COVID-19 and include racially-related violence.

These are not simple issues and their complexity requires so much from us. After all, we have carried this year and everything that we have done, we are depleted. So, in this moment in history when we may be individually exhausted, we need to rely upon our collective strength in order to reframe transition and turn disruption into transformation. That collective strength—as well as expertise, innovation, grace, and support—is what the networks, scholarship, professional development experiences, publications, and resources offered by organizations like the Pullias Center for Higher Education and the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition provide.  

Annsilla Nyar, Director of the South African National Resource Centre for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition (our sister center in that country), introduced me to a new word to capture this collective strength and knowledge. Dr. Nyar was the speaker for our closing address at the 2020 Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience in February, a time that feels very different from where we are right now. Annsilla built her talk around the concept of Ubuntu, a South African philosophy that is rooted in humanity, interdependence, community, and solidarity. It means, “I am what I am because of who we all are.” I believe that our time together at that conference, our plans to connect virtually for the 40th convening of the Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience (February 15-19, 2021), our continued scholarship and practice to advance equity and student success, and our ongoing work together as a network are rooted in Ubuntu and I hope you find both peace and power in this concept and in our connections.

So, as we close out 2020, I encourage you to reach out and connect with the peace and power that our collective strength and grace—our Ubuntu—offers us. I extend wishes of hope and healing for you, your colleagues, and your loved ones for 2021. Most of all, I wish us all the courage to reframe transition and actively participate in the process of turning disruption into transformation for higher education and society.